


the words are spirit (and they are life)

by bellamyandboujee (markfuckerberg)



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Set in Season 1, and the very beginning of season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-24 18:36:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14959947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/markfuckerberg/pseuds/bellamyandboujee
Summary: Sometimes your soulmate is an annoying girl who's just fallen from the sky.Sometimes your soulmate is the arrogant boy who's stolen your radio.Sometimes they're both.





	the words are spirit (and they are life)

i. butterflies

(‘Bellamy Blake? They're looking everywhere for you.’ You remember when the words first drew themselves on Bellamy’s skin. The way, he shivered with his whole body when he first read them and the way he and your mother cried when they thought you were asleep. “It’s about O.” he sobbed into the darkness.) (You don’t remember him being happy much after that.)

Your brother's soulmate is not his usual type. He likes them timid and pale and weak ( _delicate_ , he would correct, smiling lecherously at Fox as she passes), like dolls. His soulmate is none of these things, however, and with the small blade in her hand and the boldness in her eyes, she looks like a goddess of war.

“Shut up.” He sneers, before he can think (he makes a lot of choices before he can think) and then, he pauses (and he sees her, he _really_ sees her and judging off the way her lip quivers, she sees _him_ too).

The knife drops and they part. He laughs like it will kill him and reaches for her again (this time with different intentions, of course).

They hug, and they stay that way for a long time.

(Maybe Bellamy’s happiness has returned?)

Later, you see her kissing Finn by the fire while Bellamy disappears into the sea of tents with Roma.

(Maybe not.)

 

ii. goggles

Soulmates are best friends who make out. (That’s the way you have come to understand it at least.)

Monty tries to tell you that there is such thing as a platonic soulmate (but you have yet to see proof).

Monty often argues that Bellamy and Raven are just that: “platonic soulmates” – you argue that your mothers probably believed the same about the two of you – but Bellamy and Raven are falling in love. You can see it, even if Monty, (or Clarke, or Octavia, or Finn) can’t.

They’re good for each other. Raven is smart, and Bellamy is kind. (And sometimes, you’ve come to notice, the roles reverse). Bellamy remains most affected by Wells’ death, though he is the best at hiding it. (You think it scares him that while the walls keep enemies out, they lock just as many in.) (It scares you too.) But Raven keeps him sane. She makes him smile. She makes him laugh. Sometimes, she makes him angry, too. Sometimes they have shouting matches that go deep into the night and don’t end until both their voices have gone hoarse.

Sometimes they don’t talk for days.

One day, when you are standing guard you can hear them arguing again, you don’t hear what they’re fighting about, but you do hear “You’re mistaking me for someone who cares.” You don’t stay to see what it is Bellamy apparently doesn’t care about, but you do see Raven emerge from Bellamy’s tent three hours later, her hair is free of its usual ponytail and sweat is glued to her sun-kissed skin.

“Platonic soulmates,” you mutter to yourself, watching Raven scurry to her tent, “what a fucking joke.”

 

iii. hydrazine

(“Shut up.” Your skin says, but you do not.)

Finn does not have any words you (or anyone else) has ever said. And for a long time, you didn’t care. (Well, you _pretended_ you didn’t.)

Your scientific mind has never been able to fully accept the sheer irrationality of soulmates. (The romantic in you, however, relishes in it)

You could never conceptualize how someone could devote themselves to someone else based solely on matching marks. You used to pour yourself into the studies that came close to debunking them. You sought out every and any story of anyone who found love without the aid of a sentence on their skin.

You had always hoped if you ignored the messy, block-like handwriting sitting on your hip then you and Finn could work. (After all, this was the same universe that let the world end, so what did it really know?) And you did work, for a long time, because you were good at loving and Finn was so painfully good at being loved.

You almost never remembered that the universe was actively rooting against the two of you – unless, of course, you _did_. Sometimes, late at night with Finn’s chest heaving beneath your head, you could feel in the air that you would never truly be his (or maybe he would never truly be yours?). Sometimes, you could just see it in his eyes, when they flickered passed the mark, they would fill with this look – of disgust, or rage (or jealousy?).

When you break up, your mark itches (and it satisfies a cruel need you have deep inside of you to know that he will never understand what that feels like).

 

 iv. noose

You remember thinking that Bellamy and Clarke were soulmates. It made sense. They are two sides of the same coin: both noble and charismatic and both forged by the same bad mix of blood, fire, and steel.

But mirrors don’t fit, they reflect. And all their similarities left no room for growth. (Your father taught you, many years ago, that the point of a soulmate was to make you better.)

You think that Raven has made Bellamy better. Or at the very least she is starting to. He is no longer the man who told prophecies of bloody children running around with no rules or adults for miles. He is softer now, a leader, almost. (Sometimes as you watch him, you think he, this new Bellamy that Raven has sculpted from nothing, may deserve a second chance)

(But it’s the Bellamy before Raven you hate, and it’s the Bellamy without Raven who will suffer.)

So, you breathe in deep and you _shoot_.

 

v. guns

Your soulmate does not love you. ("Yet," Octavia informs you when you tell her this, "it takes time" she adds. You laugh because all her knowledge of romance comes from stories or teenage trysts and your soulmate is neither fiction nor child. But Octavia is happy for you. Happier for you than you are for yourself, most times. “Raven is good. You deserve good.” She reassures you, smiling prettily and it is like you are talking to your mom again.)

For the most part, you are positive you love her, but you can’t always be sure. (Sometimes, the sound of her voice is enough to send you spiraling. Sometimes, you think about wrapping your hands around her neck and squeezing and squeezing until the mark fades from your back. Sometimes, she makes you want to walk to the highest peak you can find and tell the universe to float itself.)

(Any doubt you have is washed away when Murphy shoots her.) You’re the first to see her when she staggers into camp and collapses at the threshold. (“I always see you,” you’ll tell her one day, hooking her hair behind her ears when you’re both aching and old, “You’re always with me.”)

You catch her before your brain registers her falling (maybe because she’s your soulmate but mainly because it’s the right thing to do.) It's then that Raven looks at you and glows like she has found religion in your eyes.

You feel yourself smile, and you really hope it’s charming, but you fear it looks goofy. She smiles back, regardless, and it’s somehow weak and lovely at the same time.

(You think your soulmate loves you.)

“It’s gonna be okay,” one of you promises over and over, you don’t know who, but you force yourself to believe it anyway.

 

vi. spacesuit

It’s almost funny, you muse as you immerse yourself in the eyes of Raven Reyes for the last time: Raven’s soulmate would absolutely be a guy prepared to kill her. (Who she meets no less than five feet away from you.)

You remember being so sure that Raven would kill Bellamy until he barked out the words she had drawn across her hip, and she hugged him instead.

Within hours of meeting, they had formed some unspoken agreement, Bellamy still ran after every woman that wasn’t Octavia and Raven still crawled into bed with you every night.

But anyone with eyes and half a brain could see they were destined for each other (like the shore and sea, pulling each other close just to shove themselves away). They could finish each other's sentences. They had entire conversations through eyes. They protected. They understood.

They were _perfect._

You ignored it then, but in these last moments, you see it clearly. (It’s funny how death does that.) You also see that Bellamy is not saving your life because he thinks you deserve to be saved. (They all know you don’t.) He is saving it because Raven asked him too and love is nothing if not devotion.

You also know they are in love now, you can tell by the little things: small smiles they share, the desperate, whispered ‘are your okay’s’, the way Bellamy rests his hand on the small of her back, the way Raven’s eyes ignite when she looks at him.

You can tell because it was the same when Raven was yours. (Though now you realize she was never yours, she had always, in every semblance of her being, been Bellamy’s.)

“May we meet again,” you say because it’s tradition and you love her (not the way she deserves but as much as someone like you can), but not because you think you will.

She says, “We will,” and you can see she believes it.

(You’re glad she has someone to love her the way she deserves.)

 

vii. radios

“You know, I found my soulmate.” She mutters to you, her long fingers busied by the small radio in her hand.

“Yeah?” You smile, and you lay your tools out on the steel work table in front of her. (You don’t miss the soft dust of pink across her face or the small glimmer in her eyes.)

Raven unloads on you. (Not that you mind – or have ever minded) She tells you how her soulmate is one of the Blakes. That she's met him on her first day on Earth. That he caught her when she fell. How her first words to him were, "Bellamy Blake? They’re looking everywhere for you." and how they laugh that his words were "Shut up."

Then she's fanning at her eyes with her hands, that thing all women do like it'll stop them from crying, (and you realize after a second, it’s the only time you’ve ever seen Raven Reyes do that.) So, you set down the wrench you forgot you were holding and pull her in close, you hear her giggle as she coils her arms around your waist, “He’s kind of an idiot” she mutters into your shoulder, “But that’s fine, cause I’m awesome.”

You both chuckle and are still beaming when you separate.

She laughs, thick and wet, “He’s good to me, though.”

There's a faint rustling sound in the front of the tent. A distant, masculine voice shouts, "Raven? Are you here? I can’t start the rover!"

“I’ll be there in a minute, Bellamy!” She calls back and rolls her eyes. As she turns away from you, you can tell in her face she is happy (so are you).

(“Are you okay?” You hear him question gently as she leads him out of the tent, “It looks like you’ve been crying.”

“I’m perfect.” Raven says, and you can _hear_ the smile on her face.)

 

 


End file.
